Google made a quite expansion into film and TV production earlier this month with 100 Zeroes, a production outpost launched in partnership with Range. And one of the tech company’s first projects is a new production from veteran filmmaker Doug Liman (Road House).
Liman is working with the tech company to produce what was described by Neil Parris, Head of Filmmaker Partnerships at Google, during a fireside chat in Cannes with Elvis Mitchell, as an “immersive spatial film.”
The project will launch on Asteroid, Google’s forthcoming XR app. Parris described Liman’s film to us as an “original 180° immersive short film.”
“The film, a high-stakes action thriller, is about a group of strangers who risk it all by taking an old rocket to mine a near-earth asteroid for a chance at unimaginable wealth,” Parris said. “After the film, the audience enters the story when they receive a call from one of the characters who was left behind on the asteroid. The conversation between the AI-powered character and the player drives the extension of the story beyond the linear film.”
The film will be available later this year following the release of Project Moohan, the new XR headset developed jointly by Samsung and Google. Speaking with Mitchell in Cannes, Parris said Google has spent the last year and a half “focused a lot on the relationships we’re building with filmmakers.”
“We’ve started a production vehicle called 100 Zeros in partnership with Range, which is really meant to help Google meet filmmakers where they are. And is focused on putting amazing stories into the world and enabling them across multiple ways,” Parris said.
Parris was joined by Range CEO and co-founder Peter Micelli and filmmaker Sean Douglas at the session with Mitchell. Douglas has written a short project that will serve as one of the first short films produced under the Google x Range: AI On Screen initiative. The programme commissions short films from filmmakers and a range of voices across genres that delve into the complex relationship between humanity and AI.
Elvis Mitchell, Neil Parris, Sean Douglas, and Peter Micelli.
“When we started the programme, the number one intent for Range and Google was to get artists to participate and start a dialogue,” Micelli said, adding that the goal is to try and discover what artists think will happen next with AI.
“Profound change is coming. At Range, we view it as a very exciting change. You know, they said broadcast networks were going to die in 2020, streaming was going to kill everything. You constantly hear these patterns, and behind those patterns is a shift in technology that forces change,” Micelli added.
“The advent of basic cable was a shift in technology. Streaming was a shift in technology. The thing that doesn’t shift is human beings wanting to be around storytelling. It is fundamental for us all. We care deeply about telling stories. How those stories get to you is what will always change.”
Google and Range have said 100 Zeroes will develop, finance, and produce projects across film and scripted and non-scripted TV and audio. On a post on X, the company said its goal was to “assist the creative community in integrating cutting-edge technologies and platforms, like XR and AI, into their filmmaking.”
Content shared from deadline.com.